Tickets

In the Spring of 1987, a group of music fans and journalists organised a small live event in Austin, Texas. They were pleasantly surprised by its success - around 700 people showed up. That first edition of South by SouthWest has become a 10 day conference and festival with over 28,000 attendees heading to Austin each March. It’s now one of the most recognised and respected live events on the planet, and its core tracks of music, film, technology and education inform as well as reflect what’s happening in modern culture. Today on Tickets I’m joined by Todd Hansen, SXSW’s head of conference programming. In this conversation, Todd shares insights into the programming team’s process, what makes for a compelling keynote, and how to handle one of the world’s most famous entrepreneurs showing up at 1 day’s notice. We also reminisce about a surprise gig from a member of purple royalty straight out of Todd’s hometown of Minneapolis.  Episode overview 03:00 SXSW’s history 12:00 Programming for a rocketship 18:00